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Sometimes trolls can be entertaining. There is someone who writes for Portland Independent Media Center who has a habit of writing really hilarious hyperbole about what he thinks radical feminists are like. He sounds no different from any other MRA when he tells outright lies about feminists, misrepresents our position, and pretends as though we are advocating for exterminating people. I’m not going to link, just in case the pingback brings a whole bunch of trolls over here, but if you Google this quote you’ll find the page.

Make America TERF Again
TERF’s are already gloating and rejoicing over Donald Trump’s cabinet picks.
https: //www.reddit.com/ r/GenderCritical/ comments /5edznh/silverlining_in_the_2016_presidential_election/
The term “TERF” (Trans* Exterminationist Radicalicalized Females) was invented only because real radical feminists had enough when a small group of self-radicalized vagina-worshipers began calling themselves feminists and promoting terrorism and genocide against Trans* women.
TERF’s may try to fool people into thinking they are feminists, but they are agents of the alt-right. That’s why TERF’s must be named and called out every day. No, we won’t quit.

Oh, man. Trans Exterminationist Radicalized Females. Well, radicalized females is right! When females witness the removal of our rights by MRAs in dresses, you bet we become radicalized. But Exterminationist? No feminists are calling for extermination of trans people. No feminist has ever killed a trans person. We’re not about killing people, we’re about protecting women’s rights. The people who actually kill trans people are MEN. Trans activists do not want to acknowledge the epidemic of male violence, even though it’s harming their community. They are completely against looking at the reality of male socialization and toxic masculinity that causes men to want to kill transwomen. They cannot put together the fact that radical feminists are against the very same toxic masculinity that is hurting them. They will not acknowledge the fact that a lot of the trans women who are killed are in the sex trade and that it’s johns killing them. They won’t acknowledge that johns are violent and that they are violent toward anyone in the sex trade, whether male or female. No male violence may be acknowledged in any way by trans activists. Instead, they yell at women, who aren’t killing them, for being “exterminationist.” Why? Because we understand human reproductive anatomy, and our understanding of the reality of human beings is allegedly “killing” them. Note that tons of men also understand human reproductive anatomy, but male authors of biology textbooks that call the penis a male organ aren’t getting slandered as TERFs, no-platformed, and sent death threats. That behaviour is only directed at women. That’s how we know that trans activism is a male supremacist and misogynist political group.

Terrorism and genocide? Name one example of any woman committing genocide, for fuck sake. However, if you want to see an act of terrorism, take a look at transwoman Dana Rivers, who has long hated the fact that lesbians want spaces for women only, and who actually murdered two lesbians and their son. That is an actual act of terrorism—a violent male making it clear that he hates lesbians and then actually killing lesbians. But trans activists will not call this an act of terrorism, and instead they go around the internet yelling at women who report that Dana Rivers was male. They are more concerned about the “gender identity” of male terrorists than about the violence they inflict on actual women.

It’s kind of amusing that this troll says TERFs are gloating over Trump’s cabinet picks, when the very first sentence in the link he provides says “I am a Democrat and I abhor just about everything that’s happening right now with Donald Trump and his cabinet appointments.” Yeah, that sure sounds like we’re “gloating,” right?

This stuff about radical feminists being right-wing is insane. Radical feminists are pro-feminist, pro-lesbian, pro-abortion, and are generally socialist and anti-capitalist. We are generally atheists. Sometimes radfems have a woman-centered spirituality but this certainly doesn’t look like the authoritarian, male-centered religions of the right. Calling us right-wing demonstrates that the speaker doesn’t know anything about us at all and has no interest in the truth.

I really, really love the above quote from a silly troll, because of the words “self-radicalized vagina-worshippers.” HELL YEAH. What could be better than worshipping vaginas? (Well, maybe worshipping the clitoris would be better, but, you know, the intent is the same.) Hell yeah I worship vaginas, both literally and figuratively.

And on behalf of self-radicalized vagina worshippers everywhere, I promise to keep on calling out male violence every day. No, we won’t quit.

Trans activists tend to say that trans people are essentially or intrinsically trans, and that they have to transition, it’s the only way. They also tend to say that if a male-born trans person has a sexual fetish or a criminal conviction, that shouldn’t stop him from transitioning. His fetish or criminal history shouldn’t stop him from being placed in a female prison, or from entering a female washroom or locker room.

This means the trans community even supports a guy like Stefonknee, the 53-year-old man who likes to imagine himself as being a six-year-old girl while getting fucked in the ass by his “Daddy.” You’d think that they could see that this guy is a disgusting pedophile, but no, he has the full support of his local trans community, including politicians.

Now there’s a new disgusting pedophile in town, Jorven Seren of England, a 55-year-old man who thinks he is a 5-year-old girl. He was arrested recently for kissing an actual little girl, which he did in full view of her mother, and there were 460 images of child abuse on his phone. The Judge was forced to refer to this man as a woman while in court. When he took away Seren’s doll, Seren began to suck his thumb.

(By the way, this man only got 15 months in jail, after sexually assaulting a child and having 460 images of child abuse on his phone. This sentence may have been so low because declaring yourself trans is a get-out-of-jail-free card, or it may be because the justice system has a remarkably high tolerance for child sexual abuse, and doesn’t take any serious steps to combat it. Or maybe both.)

Trans activists—where will you draw the line? Will you continue to support the “gender identity” of men in their fifties, even when they have pedophilic fantasies of being girl children? Even when they like to get fucked in the ass by their BDSM “Daddy” while dressed as a little girl? Even when they sexually assault actual girl children? Even when they suck their thumb while in court? Even when they have 460 images of child sexual abuse on their phones? When will the support end? At some point, don’t you want to enact some sort of criteria to distinguish people who transition due to dysphoria and people who are deranged pedophiles? Don’t you want to make sure you aren’t creating laws that allow deranged pedophiles into women’s prisons, washrooms, and locker rooms? Do you care about little girls who might have to change out of their swimsuit in front of men in their fifties who believe they are little girls and who actually sexually assault little girls in broad daylight in front of their mothers?

It’s long overdue for trans activists to take a good look at what kind of men are joining their movement, and to make an effort to ensure their political organizing isn’t enabling abusers.

Butch and femme are a very misunderstood topic, even among lesbians. I think that’s because only a small number of lesbians are these types—we come in all different kinds besides these, so lots of lesbians don’t know what these are. I have started getting annoyed at the number of times I see butch and femme being used as superficial masculine or feminine presentations that can be taken off or put on like an outfit. Butch does not mean “the one with the shorter hair” and it doesn’t mean you happen to have put on a flannel shirt today. Neither does femme mean that you happen to have put on lipstick today.

Being butch is a lifelong personality trait. A butch begins life as a tomboy and is immediately obvious as being different. She grows into a lesbian who looks blatantly gay and can’t hide it no matter what she does. It’s not just about her clothing or haircut. She’d still look butch if she tried to wear women’s clothing. That might make her look even more butch. It’s because she has an unmistakable personality, that comes with ways of thinking and relating and certain mannerisms that are automatic to her that she cannot turn off. This is really hard to explain to people. When people try to explain it, it always ends up sounding vague. I asked a friend of mine if she would try to explain what it means to her to be butch. She thought about it for a while and wrote this:

“What does ‘butch’ mean to me?

How do I define something that is innate, that is as much a part of me as hair and eye color, as automatic as my heartbeat or breathing?

It is not something I ‘put on’ every day, like a watch or a ring, nor can I take it off. It cannot be hidden with a dress or a skirt, or a hairstyle–in fact, those things make my butchness even more blatantly obvious.

I want to ‘get this right,’ I want to define myself in such a way that there is little, or nothing, to question. I think that starts with ‘what I am not.’

First and foremost, I am a masculine woman, I am not ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body.’ I have never felt that way. While I knew from a child that I was not like other girls, I never attributed those differences to being male. I was a girl who liked ‘boy’ things, the clothes, the toys, the play that focused on ‘boy’ games. Yes, that made me different from other girls, but frankly, not all other girls, and the differences only became apparent when they moved on to the things most girls become interested in–their appearances, their crushes, their standings in the various cliques in school.

I did not move on. I kept the clothes and the sports, traded my toys for a junker of an International Scout truck that was nearly as old as I was, and developed full-blown crushes, but on other girls. I didn’t find this odd or disturbing, it just ‘was,’ but I also was fortunate, because the girls liked me back. I was not scary to talk to like their boy crushes, they could lean-in while I smiled and joked and put them at ease while we practiced our flirting without the fear of rejection. It was win-win.

There was no internet, no resources for gay kids when I was growing up, we learned like most teens learned about anything–on the street. I first heard the term ‘baby butch’ when it was bestowed on me on my first (illegal) night in a gay bar, by a drag queen hiding me from the cops who’d come in to ‘check out’ the place. I’d never heard the term, of course I hadn’t, I didn’t know I was actually gay until the year before. There was, back then, still the distinction of butch and femme, though the lines were only just starting to blur between the two.

I am a butch, all grown up now, and not much different from the baby butch I was years ago. There is no ‘performing’ on my part, I am not ‘playing a role’ and I never have. I have no doubt of who I am, what I am. I am a woman who loves women and, over time, I have learned that women are as diverse as snowflakes, that even if a woman loves women, it does not mean that she will love a butch. For some women, or maybe more than some, we are ‘too gay,’ ‘too masculine.’ ‘Too much like men.’ And so, we are dismissed out-of-hand.

No one seems to like labels, though there are plenty to hand around. Personally, you can label me a butch, gladly, because I’m too damn old to care if that offends anyone, and maybe a little happy if it does. There is also a label for a woman who loves butches, who actively seeks them out, and that is ‘Femme.'”

* * *

There is a line from Stone Butch Blues that I want to mention. Jess is trying to explain to Theresa that she is different from other lesbians. She calls herself a he-she, a word that I personally don’t like at all, but it explains how she feels. She says “They don’t call the Saturday night butches he-shes. It means something. It’s a way we’re different. It doesn’t just mean we’re lesbians.” (p. 147–148.)

There is a difference between Jess and a “Saturday-night butch.” The Saturday-night butch goes to the lesbian bar wearing a suit, but doesn’t necessarily look masculine in her day-to-day life. Jess has something about her that she can’t turn off. She can’t just put on a different outfit, what’s different about her would still be visible. That’s what I mean by having a butch personality.

Any woman can put on a suit, or go around without makeup, and that doesn’t make her butch. Butch doesn’t just mean “not performing artificial aspects of femininity.” It’s a lesbian personality type and a lived experience.

Some butches call themselves “outside the gender binary” because their “gender” is not what people expect from women. I understand what they mean by that, but I don’t feel comfortable explaining it that way myself. Butches are women, they have a rare, but still legitimate, female personality type, and they do not need to identify outside of womanhood.

Regardless of how she explains herself, a butch always needs to be with a woman who understands her. A woman who is embarrassed about the way she looks or who thinks she is “too blatant” or “too gay” and should “tone it down” is not a suitable partner. She needs to find someone like me, who finds her natural self sexy and irresistible and who is proud of her just the way she is.

In regards to the topic of how to handle early transition, commenter Daniel asked me this:

“Two other common methods for early transition are wearing the clothes of your target gender prior to medical treatment, or going on hormones but not announcing your transition until you have physically changed enough to pass.

Each has benefits and drawbacks, and I have seen feminists react negatively to all of them. There is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation going on, and it’s not like there are official guidelines on how to handle this.

I’m genuinely curious, assuming someone has dysphoria and is transitioning to treat it, what would you like the early transition timeline to be? What do you think is the best course of action for all involved? This is not a settled question at all, and getting a gender critical perspective on it would be valuable.”

I think Daniel is talking about how if people socially transition for a while without medically transitioning, feminists keep pointing out that since their birth sex is obvious, it’s silly to call them by opposite sex pronouns. However, we also want people to take the time to think about it before medically transitioning, and as Daniel has pointed out before, socially transitioning is how people can tell whether medical transition might be right for them. So we pretty much object to any strategy they try.

Daniel asked for a gender critical perspective on how to handle early transition. My answer probably won’t be very satisfying, because the gender critical method of transition is to not transition at all. We view gender dysphoria as self-hatred and transition as the self-harm that results from that self-hatred. We just don’t want people to self-harm at all. Instead we want them to learn not to hate themselves.

I asked this question in a gender critical Facebook group to see what the response would be. I got the replies I was expecting, which was: don’t transition. We began comparing gender dysphoria to anorexia and one person, who agreed to be quoted anonymously, said this:

I think the problem is that transition doesn’t treat dysphoria any more than liposuction treats anorexia. Arguing that there should be a way to transition that we approve of is like saying “you don’t want us to get liposuction OR starve ourselves, so we are damned if we do, damned if we don’t”. It entirely misses the objection.

I think this sums it up really well. If you are female and you hate being female and you change your body so that you don’t look female any more, that doesn’t actually solve the original problem: that you hate your sex. You can’t actually become male, you can only look male from the outside. You’ll always be female, just with body modifications.

I have no doubt that people can find their dysphoria goes away or is lessened after they make body modifications, for the same reason that anorexics feel better after they lose weight. They wanted something, and they got what they wanted, and so they felt better. But the person who hates her body and feels good about changing it still has the same problem: she still thinks the body she was born with is wrong.

The gender critical perspective is that you should unravel the reasons why you began to hate your natural body in the first place and learn to change those feelings. We don’t believe that people are essentially transsexual, we think the transsexual identity is a social construction and that what’s real is the body itself. We want people to know that bodies are not wrong and that men and women can be any kind of people they want to be.

Daniel doesn’t describe dysphoria in silly sex stereotypes like “I knew I was really a boy because I liked wearing boxers,” as a lot of transitioners unfortunately do. He describes a severe mental illness that didn’t respond to anything else besides transition. So what happens if a person with dysphoria tries to reconcile with their birth sex but cannot? What then?

I’m a person who has had anxiety and depression for most of my life, and I’ve had internalized homophobia, and I was able to untangle the reasons for all that and learn ways of coping. Because I was able to do this, I believe that other people can do it, too. I think people can examine their underlying beliefs (usually with the help of a good therapist) and figure out why they ended up going down the path of self-hatred, and I think people can learn coping skills that help them manage long-term mental illnesses. I cannot give advice for dealing with gender dysphoria because I don’t have it, but there is a whole community of detransitioners who are working on this and writing about it. The only advice I can give is to look at what they’re saying.

Of course, we don’t live in Purple Sage’s Personal Utopia, (I wish!), we live in the real world. Some people are going to transition. I cannot say what the best method is for early transition, but I can say what my major objections are in regards to the way trans people often proceed.

My primary objection is the public trans activism that is being done that is taking away women’s rights. I don’t think that people trying to deal with their personal mental illness need to remove women’s rights to our own private spaces in order to feel better about themselves. Trans women who don’t pass should be able to respect that women don’t want to share a washroom with six-foot tall guys wearing makeup. They should have enough courtesy to use the men’s washroom or a gender neutral washroom, and instead of campaigning for being allowed into women’s washrooms based on self-declaration, they should be campaigning for single-user, unisex washrooms in order to balance their needs with women’s needs.

My second most important objection is the public trans activism that forces everyone to redefine male and female and pretend as though human reproductive anatomy is an unfathomable mystery instead of an accepted scientific fact. We shouldn’t have to force organizations like Planned Parenthood or midwife organizations to talk about “pregnant people” when only women can get pregnant. This removes women from a conversation about women and it causes both gas-lighting and bullying of women.

I guess if there is any such thing as a gender critical approach to transition, it would simply be transitioning without denying reality. Being a female with dysphoria is not the same experience as being male, and there is no harm is acknowledging this. Women with dysphoria don’t need to flip out when someone refers to women as the class of people who can get pregnant. The reason FtMs can get pregnant is because they’re female, and I think they can recognize this reality even while taking testosterone to help their dysphoria. If pregnancy would worsen dysphoria, then it’s a good idea not to get pregnant, however that doesn’t mean the entire world has to pretend that men can get pregnant. They can’t.

I think it’s entirely possible to think of gender dysphoria as an illness requiring treatment, rather than a sign of being essentially transsexual, or a sign of being literally the opposite sex. I don’t think we need to make up stuff about being “born in the wrong body,” when there is no such thing as a body being wrong. I don’t think any harm comes to a woman if she admits to being biologically female despite having a condition that makes her want to present as a man.

Transition is used as a treatment because we haven’t figured out how to treat people in any better ways. I think that when learning how to treat dysphoria, we should be taking clues from the way anorexia and dissociation are treated, and we should be listening to detransitioners.

What I would suggest (and this is, of course, some TERFy advice), is that if you feel you have to transition, you should still try to work on discovering the reasons why you started hating yourself in the first place, and you should still try to reconcile with your birth sex, even while transitioning. This may appear to be a contradiction, but I heard an interesting point from a FtM who might be considered a “gender critical trans man” who spoke to me in email a few times. She said that taking testosterone made her feel better about being female. That might sound odd, but I think what she did is take on the appearance that felt comfortable to her without denying her sex, and she felt better about who she was afterwards. I think people can be fully themselves, even while making body modifications, without denying their biological sex, and further, I think people are more fully accepting of themselves when they don’t have to deny anything. Even though I personally feel that no one should transition, I really appreciated hearing her perspective. My main objections are the removal of women’s rights and the denial of reality, so when someone is just doing what feels right to her without being misogynist or denying facts, I’m pretty chill about it. It’s a lot like someone getting a tattoo or a piercing—it’s her body, and it doesn’t affect me.

Socially transitioning usually means telling everyone that you have the wrong body and you’re going to change it and can everyone please refer to you by your new “gender” because that’s who you really are. Does it have to be presented this way though? What if the reason given for using your new pronouns is not that you are literally the opposite sex, but that you have a mental illness and this will help you cope? I wonder if people don’t do that because it’s harder to explain or embarrassing or something. I can’t say I know what to do exactly about this, but my general advice is: tell the truth. Every conversation about how to accommodate people with dysphoria should proceed from the truth. Then we might get somewhere.

A friend of mine went to an event recently and found the washrooms like this:

The women’s washroom has been turned into a gender neutral washroom, and a sign on the door indicates women, men and in-between. The men’s washroom remains unchanged. Note: these are not single stall washrooms, they are group washrooms.

It’s starting to become a noticeable pattern that when one washroom is made into a gender neutral one, it’s the women’s that gets converted. This means that men can go anywhere but women cannot have any space just for ourselves. If you enter an establishment and find the women’s washroom taken away, please complain to the manager and stop using the business until they provide a washroom for women. Any male allies out there? You can do the same thing. Complain to management that there should be a women’s washroom and do not give them your business until they give it back.

Women, please document this whenever it happens. Take a photo and put it on social media. We need to keep records of our spaces being taken away.

Transgender activism works to remove women’s right to safety and privacy and does not allow us to set boundaries. We need to oppose it with full force.

Oh, Autostraddle! A website which claims to be “the world’s most popular lesbian website” and “a progressively feminist online community for multiple generations of kickass lesbian, bisexual & otherwise inclined ladies,” likes to promote the opinions of men who erroneously call themselves “lesbians” and who give advice to women who are presumably lesbian and bisexual on how to have sex with men. It should really go without saying that giving advice to lesbians on how to have sex with men is neither progressive, nor feminist, nor lesbian.

An article called Holigay Gift Guide: Sex Toys for Trans Women, written by a “lesbian” trans woman, gives advice for what kind of sex toys to buy your Laydee for Christmas, and most of them are things to shove up his butt. It should really go without saying that lesbians don’t want to shove anything up men’s butts, even when those men are wearing dresses and makeup.

The article opens like this:

“Dating a trans woman is cool! Sleeping with a trans woman is cool! Fucking a trans women is cool!”

This coming from the “world’s most popular lesbian website”? I gotta tell you, this sounds a lot more like the world’s most popular autogynephile website. Ain’t no lesbian who wants to fuck a trans woman.

“Trans women have prostates! Or at least most of us do. And when it comes to sex, that’s a great thing! If she’s into that! Here are some toys to help you reach the g-spot in your favorite t-girl.”

You know why trans women have prostates? Because they’re male!

“Maybe you’ve already got the butt stuff covered. If that’s the case and you want to try some different things, I’ve got some ideas. When you’re a trans woman and you start hormones, one of the results is that your nipples become ridiculously sensitive. In order to take advantage of that, you can get the Rings of Fire Nipple Press Set or Feather Nipple Clamps.”

Okay, if my nipples were extra sensitive due to hormones, the LAST thing I’d want is a nipple clamp on them. Especially one called “Rings of fire.” Yikes! Could this maybe be a masochistic fetish?

“Condoms aren’t just for men, you know; they can come in real handy for sex with a trans woman.”

You know why condoms come in handy for sex with trans women? Because they have working penises that produce sperm! Because they’re male!

And then he suggests some lacy underwear that are open in the back for easy butt access. You don’t even want to see the picture of that.

Lesbians are not interested in sex with trans women. We are not interested in penises even if their owners call them ‘strapless’ or laydee sticks, and we are not interested in men’s butts. Lesbians are interested in female humans only. Male autogynephiles’ sexual desires do not belong on a lesbian website. Although bisexual women are attracted to men, they don’t read a lesbian magazine to learn about sex with men. If bisexual women are reading a lesbian magazine it’s for the woman-loving content.

This morning I woke up to a comment that started off with “I’m not a TERF, but….” and then she basically agreed with the problem I have with Danielle Muscato.

“I’m not a TERF, but I do find that it is a bit disingenuous of D. Moscato to have made this pronouncement two years ago and, in glancing at their FB page, see no difference in their presentation to date. Curious. It is not difficult to shave or to modify clothing style, and yet I see none of that. Perhaps giving up male privilege is more difficult than they originally anticipated.”

It’s interesting that she just denied Muscato’s gender identity and yet she feels the need to say “I’m not a TERF.” I have several things to say about that.

First of all, nobody is actually a TERF. This is not actually a descriptive acronym, it’s a slur. The way it is used in speech is the same way people use bitch, whore, cunt, or feminazi. Nobody identifies as a TERF and this isn’t an accurate description of anyone’s politics. For a really excellent analysis of why the word TERF is not an accurate description of anyone’s politics, see this post by Rebecca Reilly-Cooper.

I know that I joke about being a TERF. When I call myself a TERF I’m being sarcastic, the way I’m being when I call myself a kink-shaming shitlord, or when I say I want to start a rock band called The Goddamn Feminazis. It’s just me making fun of the people who say these kinds of words. I don’t actually “exclude” trans people though. I read the words of trans people, I watch their videos, I talk with them, they comment on my blog, and I have not excluded any trans people from anything in real life.

Now that I’ve just asserted that no one is a TERF, I’m going to turn it around and say that everyone is a TERF. You see, anyone who disagrees with any trans activist on anything is a TERF. This is just a silly slur that trans activists throw around whenever someone disagrees with them. This slur can be applied to absolutely anyone—you don’t have to be radical or even a feminist and you can even be trans and get called this slur. The only criteria for being called a TERF is that you happen to be someone who pissed off a trans activist.

The criteria for pissing of a trans activist gets sillier all the time. The Tumblr and Twitter community comes up with bullshit so stupid that you’re sure it will bring about the end of civilization. You’re a TERF if you know that women menstruate, you’re a TERF if you understand how babies are made, you’re a TERF if you know that lesbians aren’t interested in dick, you’re a TERF if you even say the words “female” or “biology.” Since reality itself is transphobic, everyone who understands reality is a TERF. All humans the world over know the difference between male and female, so all of us are TERFs.

The comment “I’m not a TERF, but…” followed by a statement agreeing with a so-called “TERF” reminds me of the women who say “I’m not a feminist, but…” This phrase is uttered by a woman who agrees with a feminist position on something but still wants to distance herself from feminism, because she doesn’t want to be associated with those nasty, ugly, hairy, man-hating feminazis who are ruining the whole world by saying that women are a distinct class of people who should be free from oppression.

I hate to break it to ya, but if you know that Danielle Muscato is not a woman, then you’re a TERF, because he identifies as a woman so anything less than full acceptance of his identity makes you a TERF. And if you don’t think that word describes you, welcome to the club! Maybe instead of trying to distance yourself from the people who are fighting for women’s rights, you could realize that we actually have a point and you actually agree with it.